She fondly pats his head while speaking thus, just as though it were a child she addressed. The speculator looks up. His face is very, very white, and lines of pain show upon it, but through this he smiles, oh, so sweetly, as his eyes fall upon the fair face so near his own.
“My dear girl, I thank God I secured an annuity for you some years ago. That at least is saved. I have received bad news—the worst that could have happened has arrived, and I am afraid, my dear girl, that your father is—a ruined man!”
CHAPTER XX.
SAMSON CEREAL AND SON.
Unseen by any of them the door has opened a trifle. Colonel Bob’s curiosity has been aroused by such singular happenings, and he is determined to see for himself what it means. He has some idea that John is connected with the business—that perhaps his father’s telegram was from the authorities or some friend in Denver, telling the sad facts of John’s downfall, and it behooves the sheriff, under these conditions, to keep a keen lookout lest the young man should give him the slip. After going to such trouble it is hardly his policy to let John escape, not if a dozen receptions have to be broken up.
So Colonel Bob posts himself by the door to hear what is said, and his quick intuition tells him the true state of affairs.
John has held back while Dorothy attempts to arouse her father, but at the mention of the word “ruin” he can restrain himself no longer.
“What does this mean, father? I think that I have a right to know,” he says, bending over his despondent parent.
Samson Cereal raises his eyes wearily.
“Ah! it’s you, John. Yes, you are my son, and you have a right to know. The markets have been so infernally dull, with no business in the country, that in order to keep myself going I looked up some new sources of speculation, and had such wonderful faith in them that I went in deeper than I knew, it being my object to get the control of the company. Majority rules, and the minority can be frozen out.